The hardest moral choice *Spoilers*

[Oirish_Martin]

Little Sisters - as in Bioshock 1, can't do anything with those little cuties except rescue them after some good fun ADAM hunting; was feeling proud when Eleanor followed my example, and was quite happy watching her teleport into the paediatric wings in Persephone and rescue all the sleeping little sisters.* I think it would have been better, however, to have the option of leaving all the little sisters, rather than making dealing with at least four of them mandatory.

Grace - I spared her, partly because she was old, had had an honest but rough life - but primarily, I spared her because she hadn't spliced up. Possibly a shade of the moral of the first game there - a man chooses, a slave obeys. Yes, she made bad choices on bad advice, but she wasn't a slave to her degenerate instincts the way most splicers were.

Stanley - saw him, and literally didn't consider him worth the effort of swinging my drill at his skull. I had so much contempt for what a slimeball he was, I almost considered him utterly nonexistent - so I just hopped on the train.

Gil - As with most other people, the toughest one. My reasoning was his sane self had requested he be killed, so I did it. Felt good about it at the time. Felt really crap about it afterwards. Incidentally, I've said in at least one other thread that that part of the game was the best in terms of what it made me feel. That whole level had me feel on edge the entire time - I was revving myself up for some kind of titanic battle with Cthulu-on-ADAM-and-Art-Deco , and instead I get a little giggle as I take a DNA sample. Which was both unexpected and stupendously funny. Then I killed him. And felt really terrible. And I felt even worse when I saw the blood in the water, because it looked pretty realistic (definitely give whoever coded that one a raise.....)

Meltzer: Found his audio logs really affecting and a great inclusion in the game - had no idea of his backstory detailed in the promotional minigame, but really felt a connection with him anyway, probably because we both had the same goal of finding our daughters. I actually hoped at one point that I'd bump into him and his daughter and could help them escape. Then a routine Big Daddy killing in Fontaine Futuristics left me horrified to realise I'd accidentally murdered the guy; the same guy I was naively hoping earlier on I could save. It was the least I could do to rescue his daughter.

Sinclair: Again, he asked me to do it, so I chain lightning'd him down relatively quickly. I'm still not sure what to make of him. At first I found him fairly dull and somewhat morally ambiguous, given that he suggested you kill the little sisters (which made me think he was going to be Atlas all over again) but then he didn't give me a hard time for saving them, so I began to think he may be different. Even though he starts off as essentially your tour guide, by the time I reached Fontaine Futuristics I was just so used to having him along. And even though I knew he was Ryan's amoral fix-it guy from early on in the game, and even though I was really disgusted by the notion of a horrible place like Persephone in a place like Rapture, the people I really hated for it were Ryan and Lamb, not Sinclair. Definitely an interesting experience, and I'm gutted about how that one ended.

Ending - the best one

*Random question - if you harvest the little sisters, does Eleanor then go about...erm...murdering the Little Sisters in their beds as they sleep?

[Xardas]

*Random question - if you harvest the little sisters, does Eleanor then go about...erm...murdering the Little Sisters in their beds as they sleep?

I'm pretty sure that harvesting or saving the Little Sisters has no effect on any gameplay throughout the campaign. The only thing I think it affects (besides Grace's gifts) is the ending. Whether you harvested or rescued, Eleanor still needed the Little Sisters to boil the water.

[Crezth]

I agree with Mr. Thomas. This is an excellent thread. Your reasoning on all the choices is very good. I ended up killing Gil. It never occured to me that doing otherwise would be the more morally correct choice, but you make a very good case for it. I suppose I thought that putting such a monstrosity out of it's misery, especially when instructed to by the same person, struck me as what would be most just. But you do make a very interesting point that Gilbert Alexander was effectively already dead.

How I rationalized it was really as mercy: Gil Alexander may no longer be, but his memory exists. Another way to think of it is that this is a horribly twisted Gil, and to let him be really does do the memory of Gil wrong.

I killed him because I reckoned it to be merciful, but seeing these arguments help me grasp how the killing could be wrong.

[Codex]

I'm pretty sure that harvesting or saving the Little Sisters has no effect on any gameplay throughout the campaign. The only thing I think it affects (besides Grace's gifts) is the ending. Whether you harvested or rescued, Eleanor still needed the Little Sisters to boil the water.

This is a huge spoiler, you have been warned: If you harvest ANY of the Sisters, Eleanor harvests the girls at the end. Its incredibly depressing to sit through and watch.

I agree with Mr. Thomas. This is an excellent thread. Your reasoning on all the choices is very good.

You bellhop you...

[Xardas]

This is a huge spoiler, you have been warned: If you harvest ANY of the Sisters, Eleanor harvests the girls at the end. Its incredibly depressing to sit through and watch.



You bellhop you...

How does Eleanor boil the water then?

[Codex]

How does Eleanor boil the water then?

By killing the little ones. You kill the splicers/Alphas and then she harvests them all in their sleep. It made me feel sick, when accompanied with Lamb's taunting dialogue.

[Xardas]

By killing the little ones. You kill the splicers/Alphas and then she harvests them all in their sleep. It made me feel sick, when accompanied with Lamb's taunting dialogue.

That's depressing. I'm glad that I got the good ending and had an Eleanor that I could be proud of. Still wish Sinclair had outfitted his damn escape vessel with a Vita-Chamber though. I was pretty annoyed that I survived bullets, explosions, giant beasts, fire, ice, electricity, overall manic anxiety (not to mention the freaking torpedo that Father Whales blasted that landed a direct hit on me) and then ended up getting killed by a tiny little explosion. Damn you Sinclair.

[Codex]

That's depressing. I'm glad that I got the good ending and had an Eleanor that I could be proud of. Still wish Sinclair had outfitted his damn escape vessel with a Vita-Chamber though. I was pretty annoyed that I survived bullets, explosions, giant beasts, fire, ice, electricity, overall manic anxiety (not to mention the freaking torpedo that Father Whales blasted that landed a direct hit on me) and then ended up getting killed by a tiny little explosion. Damn you Sinclair.

So many smart, intelligent business plans, surviving ten years of Rapture post civil war, surviving the Rapture Civil War, and yet he doesn't think about the chance for resurrection? Idiot.

[FelixZay]

When it came down to Gil, I felt obligated to kill Alex the Great. The way I see it, Gil aided me through the area, past security, and instructed me in getting his genetic key. In return, he asked that I kill the being he is becoming.

I felt contractually obligated to fulfill Gil's wishes.

A way to phrase it would be, you find a map. On the back of the map is some writing. This map belonged to a long dead pirate/eccentric billionaire/explorer/etc. The writing states that the map leads to a substantial fortune; but the author requests that after you find the treasure, you deliver half of the value to his surviving family.
Do you do as he asks, or do you just keep it all (after all he's dead anyway)? Sounds easy. Now what if the surviving relative doesn't vote the same way you do? What if they don't live life according to your moral standards? What if they don't live according to society's moral standards?
The point of all those questions is this: at what point do you go back on the silent agreement you entered by using the map?
Another way of putting it is, if you (for whatever reason) are incapable of fulfilling the obligations stated, do you use the map anyway? Or does it even matter since the author is dead?

If I was incapable of killing Alex the Great, I wouldn't have accepted Gil's help. Of course, there is no way around the acceptance of Gil's aid in this instance...so I 'took' the help, and fulfilled the obligation laid upon me when I took his assistance.

As a final note, one final note about my map question.
What if, instead of a map, it was someone's Last Will and Testament (which is legally binding)?

[Bear Is Atlas]

I have to say that I really liked how the moral choices of the game seemed to progress in difficulty as you went along, going from fairly clear-cut to "I'm not sure there even is a straightforward answer to this one." We were all used to the Harvest/Rescue choice from the first game, so they had to throw something more in (though I originally thought that the longer you held on to a Little Sister, the more likely it was that you would get jumped by Big Sister - meaning that you could get the same amount of ADAM by either harvesting or gathering, but gathering was longer, more expensive in terms of ammo, and greatly increased your chances of getting into a very dangerous fight).

As for specifics:

Grace - this one was a no-brainer for me. She was an old lady who'd done nothing wrong other than come to some misguided conclusions. Plus, she was no threat to me and there was no good reason to kill her. I spared her without pause.

Stanley - I'll admit, I entertained the notion of putting a spear through this numbskull's brain. He's a liar, a thief, and an all-around miserable wretch who refuses to face up to what he's done. Even Fontaine made no bones about what he wanted. But in the end, I decided that he just wasn't worth it. If I went around Rapture putting spears in everyone who deserved it, I'd run out of spears. Let him rot in a drowned wonderland and face the splicers.

Gil - this one was the one that really got me to sit down and think. It didn't really seem like there was a right or wrong answer to it. When I first heard Gil's plea for his own murder, I thought it'd be like Steinman or Cohen - that when I finally met the man, he'd attack me first, and I could put him down without pause. But Alex the Great wasn't Gil anymore. If he'd ever asked me to kill him like Gil had, I would have done it without hesitation - but he didn't. He wanted to live. We're allowed to change our minds. I let him live.

Mark - oh, Mark. I've already written about him at length. I'm not going to bring it up again.

Sinclair - this was a real blow, especially after Mark. It seems like Bioshock has a requirement for at least one character with an excellent accent per game, and Sinclair fulfilled that role admirably. I was a little ticked at him early on for sitting in that train car and letting me do all the work - in fact, when he got caught, I was tempted to tell him, "See what you get?" But he steadily grew on me, and it was such a shocker when Lamb sprung him on you. You had no idea he'd been captured (in fact, I sort of wish we'd had some indication - his voice cutting off during a transmission or something). I never really believed he was going to be another Atlas, since I didn't think they'd try to get us the same way twice, but I will admit I was always waiting for him to turn on me somehow. Instead, he tried to help me to the end, and even admitted that he felt sorry for the things he'd done. And then it turned out that it was really Lamb who'd given you to Ryan as a test subject; in Rapture terms, not selling you to a program of horrible genetic experiments practically makes you family. Good for you, Sinclair.

I think Sinclair is really the most interesting character in terms of moral grey areas. It's abundantly clear from the diaries and places you go that Sinclair is not a nice guy; he runs a prison, a tenement block, and a company that promises "solutions" to your messy little problems. But he's completely honest about what he wants, and I really do believe that he would have gone through with the plan to save Eleanor. He strikes me as the kind of guy who will do everything possible to negotiate a deal with you that benefits him as much as possible; but once he gives his word, he'll keep it. He really did seem to want you to succeed. I was saddened by his death, and did everything I could to find another way.

[Sinclair Saucer]

Actually Bear is Atlas, you do get a hint about Sinclair being captured. When you walk into the decontamination chamber that Elenor is behind; he says that something is breaking up the signal.

Why 2k WHY!!!!!!

[temporaryplaceholder]

Choosing whether or not to kill Grace for me, was tougher than most seem to think!

Admittedly though, my confusion was not in thinking of her, but myself. I had thought "oh man, if I leave her here... it is going to bite me in the ass! She'll call the family on me, or she'll come back later in the plot..." I suppose, this came from the way death was presented as a challenge. She was just egging you on, screaming for you to hurry it up.

And the more I looked, she had no fear, she was standing proud and waiting. She was not only proving her point in a Ryan-esque way, but she seemed also to genuinely want to die. She has had enough of Rapture, as so many that have suicided also felt.

I chose to let her live because personally, I feel a duty to Rapture. I know the within the scope of the game, I absolutely cannot, but I feel empathy for the loss, the heritage that is now in ruins.. to bring it back, save and rebuild the place. To me, killing the unspliced is not mercy, it is destruction. Senseless crushing of the last, final spark of what once was, when personally, I want to preserve it. Grace, had to live.

The others seemed so much easier to me. Stanley was an evil, self-absorbed, spinless and conniving prick! He was no asset to Rapture. I feel, if I left him, he would go ahead doing exactly what I did not want to do to people like Grace. Crush Rapture's "final sparks." I gave him a long painful revenge session. Electobolt and drill, later rinse and repeat.

Gil, I killed without hesitation. I do not doubt that his pleas were fear, not true desire. He was scared of death! This is why he does not simply kill himself, but leaves Delta to do it for him. In my opinion, leaving him to slosh around in a large glass vial... he will eventually want to die anyway. He might be mad, but he does not have the mind of a goldfish to withstand such a life.

Plus, "changed person" or not, I truly believe in the right for people to plan their deaths as such, and furthermore, to die with dignity. If it were me, I would be outraged if someone left me that way.

As for the Little Sisters, to me that is "Kill or be Killed." No true moral choice, merely, my survival. I harvested one, and thereafter, found rescuing was enough to get by.

[Don A K Bab]

I've done it both extremes now, save everyone and kill everyone and here's my thoughts.

Grace - This was easy on my nice playthrough as I actually wanted to let her live since she's so convinced you'll kill her it'd undermine everything she's said about you by leaving her alive.

Also I felt a kind of empathy for her since she's only mad at you for taking Ellenor away (even though you didn't actually take her), having had her taken from you and the level of splicer carnage you leave in your wake in order to get her back I'd say she's justified in trying to kill you. Leaving her alive is just the only way you can say you understand her actions and forgive them since she gives you the key to get Ellenor back.

Stanley - This guy's a bit more tricky since I actually wanted to drill him even on my nice playthrough. Having given both Delta up for the protector program and Ellenor to the little sisters he was a prime candidate for death by drill, or fire or stinging to death by a swarm of angry bees.

I did take the high road for my nice playthrough but I'll have to admit I did take great pleasure in mashing him up on my nasty go. More than that I actually felt justified, not only for Delta and Ellenor but for all those in the park when he flooded the place (maybe including little Billy, the boy with the crush on Ellenor).

It is a double edged sword though since if it weren't for him then you and her never would have been put together in the first place and she'd be condemned to a life as Lambs experiment. I still feel it's right to do him though if for no other reason than flooding the park and thus murdering all the patrons.

Gil - This guy's a toughie as well. When he was sane he wanted you to kill him, now as a huge fishie nutter he still wants to live.

Hmmmm, while he may have wanted to die while sane and he only got in this satte with the best of intentions, the old saying stands that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He should've thought more about the potential consequences of this action before going forward (but then so should the rest of Rapture since this whole place fell apart for the same reason).

After doing it both ways I now feel that the most appropriate thing to do is leave him alive. Even though he wanted to die while sane I think he could've had some random splicer do it for him before he turned into the huge fish beast.

Also it's bad for "The family" to leave him alive as he's constantly firing (killing) splicers for no real reason and he's sure to be even more mad now that you've turned on the lights and you'll leave him in constant pain which means he'll do even more damage to them. All told I'll be leaving him alive and in pain from now on.

Sinclair - Not much of a choice really, he has to die and since he's quite willing to die (he doesn't want to be a Big Daddy), then just try and do it as painlessly as possible.

Little Sisters - The only way I'll ever play this again is to save the girls, harvesting makes me feel absolutely terrible. Especially this time where you don't just kill the BD and either save or kill them but actually abuse their trust in you and have them get more ADAM before ripping their guts out.

After harvesting the first girl every time after just gets worse and worse, their pleading eyes and quavering voices after a gather asking "Where are we going Daddy?" or "You never going to hurt me, right?".

Seriously, unless you have a heart of solid stone this should tear you up inside and I have to say I found it harder and harder to just keep telling myself that it's only a game and this is what you've got to do.

For me the hardest thing was and always will be the little ones, never shall they suffer by mine hand again.

P.S. may have made some spelling errors, can't be bothered to change 'em now.

[Lady Splicer]

@osyka: Yes. Yes, I would.

You do not grasp the fact that killing the terrorists can be the immoral thing regardless of the results of the bomb exploding. Presupposition is precisely the problem. You assume consequentialism to be correct. You do not allow that there could be perfectly good deontological reasons for thinking that the positive act of killing is immoral.

Great chats, people. Loving the conversation we've got going here.

[RaiNoTsuba]

I got the best ending and for my second playthrough im tempted to try the harvesting route to see how it does effect Elanor in the end. It might also help me to get stronger in the game quicker with the surplus of adam i will be building up after each LS. I may seem heartless to some for my approach but this is how rapture has been run since its downfall and i would only being going down the same road as in intended with a pure evil ending.

[Kad]

Actually Bear is Atlas, you do get a hint about Sinclair being captured. When you walk into the decontamination chamber that Elenor is behind; he says that something is breaking up the signal.

Why 2k WHY!!!!!!

And then Lamb says later, "Yes, what of Sinclair?" or something like that.

[douko]

I save everyone except Gil. The monster he became obviously wasn't of sane mind, and couldn't make sane choices. The only coherent instructions I had about him was his recordings to kill him. Respecting a man's wishes, I did. It thoroughly surprised me that it was considered a "bad" thing to do.

[Big Daddy V2]

I agree with what you said mostly. I let Grace and Stanley both live. They were going to live "normal"(as normal as any Rapturian) lives after I left, so I saw no advantage for either of us in killing them. When it came to Alexander, I thought about it for a little while and I kind of assumed the game thought the "good" choice would be to let him live. However I decided to kill him. It was what the sane genius of Alexander wanted. I also took into account that I myself would not want to live in that state.

In terms of alex, I saved before the decision. My plan was to let him live so he could suffer like lady splicer said, his sanity was dead, but i wanted to shut him up so I killed him, then reloaded the save

[Xardas]

I save everyone except Gil. The monster he became obviously wasn't of sane mind, and couldn't make sane choices. The only coherent instructions I had about him was his recordings to kill him. Respecting a man's wishes, I did. It thoroughly surprised me that it was considered a "bad" thing to do.

Well, look at it through the eyes of Eleanor. She's not exactly a well-developed healthy young woman. If a little girl sees you killing something, they're not going to know what moral choices are going on in your head. So, for all intensive purposes, she saw you killing something because:

1. Its different from other humans. This could enforce ideals of elitism and possible racism.

2. It was hindering you previously until you killed it. Once again, she's not realizing the moral choices behind your actions, she's just seeing what the cause and effect was. Namely, he attacked you, and you killed him.

[Bear Is Atlas]

Actually Bear is Atlas, you do get a hint about Sinclair being captured. When you walk into the decontamination chamber that Elenor is behind; he says that something is breaking up the signal.

And then Lamb says later, "Yes, what of Sinclair?" or something like that.

Ah! Here I thought the chamber was just blocking the signal. And Lamb had been insinuating that Sinclair was up to no good a few times at that point, so I just figured it was more of the same. Oh, poor bastard - you were a bastard, but you didn't deserve that .

Gil, I killed without hesitation. I do not doubt that his pleas were fear, not true desire. He was scared of death! This is why he does not simply kill himself, but leaves Delta to do it for him. In my opinion, leaving him to slosh around in a large glass vial... he will eventually want to die anyway. He might be mad, but he does not have the mind of a goldfish to withstand such a life.

I thought Alex said he was going to go "live outside"? I wish there had been a little more of a cinematic (or at least a codec call) to explain what happened to him rather than you just turning around and leaving. I actually figured he might show up again in the end, swimming around outside the lifeboat platform or something. I got the impression that he could leave the tank anytime he wanted; that's why you had to lure him into it with the flowers.

I save everyone except Gil. The monster he became obviously wasn't of sane mind, and couldn't make sane choices. The only coherent instructions I had about him was his recordings to kill him. Respecting a man's wishes, I did. It thoroughly surprised me that it was considered a "bad" thing to do.

I understand, and I originally thought along pretty much the same lines - Gil asked you from the very beginning to do this, he helped you do it, and it seems wrong not to carry through. But when it came right down to it, it seemed like the being I was facing just wasn't Gil anymore, and there was no reason it should die because of someone else. If it had showed any sign to me that the original Gil Alexander was still there - asking to be killed, or calling itself Gil, or even really remembering Gil's past - I would have killed it. But it genuinely seemed to me to be a new creature.

I think it could be construed as an act of mercy either way, really. That's why it makes for such an interesting choice.

[Nohjo]

I killed Gil. He asked me to do it, he set up a whole system just to kill him.
He was this mutated blob of flesh in a fishtank. I would not have wanted to live like that.
But then again, maybe he enjoyed it after all. :P I dont know. In my next playthrough, I won't kill him. Also for the achievement ofcourse.

splicers were harder to kill in bio2. When they were worshipping the vents, I found it hard to kill them.
I never killed the crying splicers though, the ones you find in the last lvl.

The splicers seemed more human to me. More sane.

[halforc80]

All through the game, with every choice given, I kept asking myself "What kind of man would Eleanor want me to be? What kind of 'Father' would I be?"

So far, I haven't killed anyone and I feel good about that.

[shermzor]

All through the game, with every choice given, I kept asking myself "What kind of man would Eleanor want me to be? What kind of 'Father' would I be?"

So far, I haven't killed anyone and I feel good about that.

Felt the same way.

That said on my evil playthrough of course I had to kill everyone but I was glad to see that the devs really make you feel sickened about your actions at the end.

But to be fair to my evil self I didn't kill Stanley; I was fighting a big sister and mid fight she turned around and chased into the booth and pummeled his face into the window. The only real WTF moment I had.

[Glasgow]

In my first play through of BS2 I told myself before hand "Joe, you're gonna be a good person and do the 'right' thing" and I did what was expected of me but got something more. As soon as I realized that I was pair-bonded with a Little Sister in the opening cut-scene and that she was my "daughter" I immediately felt a sense of revenge and a father-daughter dynamic take-over despite the fact that I am 17 and currently single (ladies...) So my new goal was to save every little sister I could and to make sure Eleanor came out of all this Ok. To me, saving the Little Sisters was the biggest and most important choice of all. I mean c'mon, you can't let little kids be kidnapped and turned into thirsty bloodhounds and put in a world like Rapture. It may sound strange but I did feel some compassion and I felt protective towards the Little Sisters even though they were fictional.

Now as for the moral choices in the game. The first one with Grace for me was a no-brainer. I like proving people wrong and showing that understanding is better than blind ignorance. By letting her live I felt like it was the right thing to do.

Stanley was different though. As I played through that level and found out what kind of person he was and what he did to me and Eleanor, I wanted to kill him. No question about it. But, when the moment came where the booth was unlocked and I could put a rivet through his skull. He seemed very pathetic to me and I wasn't sure what to do. He was a jackass but it was still murder to me, but he no reason to live anyways and didn't deserve to live and should be punished. At first I actually just took what I needed from the booth and left...at first. But, when Eleanor also told me her disdain for Stanley, I said to myself "Baby wants what baby gets" and I went back inside and shot him right in the face and got back on the train.

Now as for Gil, I too like most of you had a bit more trouble deciding what to do with "Alexander The Great". Short answer, yes I did kill him. I killed him out of mercy, pity and maybe because I thought that I couldn't let someone as dangerous and as crazy as him live. To me, leaving him alive would be cruel and just cause him more pain and suffering, whether Alex realized it or not. So I killed him.

I agree with all you guys to, WHY DID SINCLAIR HAVE TO DIE!? I wanted him to be saved as well but when he got in my way I had to put him down like the rabid dog Lamb turned him into.

[TAK The Voyager]

When it comes to the hardest moral choice, it was definetly Stanely.

I save all the Little Sisters, (I mean, come one, how can you kill something so adorable and unknowing of what's really going on).

Grace wasn't someone I was going to kill either. She just didn't understand, plus, I believe in forgiveness, she didn't know that it was someone else who changed Eleanor, no me/Delta.

I wasn't even aware you could kill Alex the Great, I guess I just forgot about the whole "luring" thing. So I left him be. At that point in the game, I was determined to find Eleanor.

Stanely killed people, was the reason Eleanor became a little sister, and turned you into Ryan. You became a Big Daddy, a walking monster. Eleanor even confirmed Lamb's statement. But again, I didn't kill him. I always go with forgiveness and mercy.

But with Sinclair, there really wasn't a choice for me. I wish I could just get to Lamb herself, to stop him. But he even asked for me to take him out. That sucked, and made me realize that BioShock has once again, really made me attatched to these characters.

TAK

[Lady Splicer]

I really shouldn't revive this thread, but I'm in the midst of a leisurely second playthrough and just received an interesting radio message from Sofia Lamb in Fontaine Futuristics. I obviously missed this the first time through.

In it, Sofia says:

"Poor Gilbert. It was his will to die, Delta. To serve the majority by protecting them from his lunacy.

Your entire journey here is based on your refusal to do the same. Will you grant his request, knowing that he served the Family?"

I'd (stupidly) forgotten that Alexander was under the influence of Sofia's WYK mental conditioning. I couldn't understand why he'd left all those messages instructing you on how to kill him. Of course, now it all makes sense: he left those messages because he was compelled to do so by the collectivist, utilitarian programming that Sofia had embedded in his brain (once crazy, he would have to be killed to protect the collective aka the Family).

This raises a few of questions:

1. Was Gil really leaving the instructions that he wanted to leave? People have claimed throughout this thread that Gil left them because "he didn't want to be a monster". I no longer think that actually was his motivation.

2. So, putting aside my argument about Gil's opinion not mattering because he's mentally dead, how do we even know what Gil actually wanted (seeing as it seems likely that he was just acting on a WYK trigger)?

3. If people think that Alex the Great's begging doesn't count because he was a monster and "clearly out of his mind", shouldn't that also mean that the audio diaries don't account because Gil was also insane (albeit, in a different way) when he left them?

Sorry if someone has raised this - I haven't had time to go through the new posts. I think it adds another dimension to this moral dilemma!

And thanks, 2K. Not only are the moral choices great, there are always new and interesting things to discover on repeat plays!

[Moeishaa]

I saved every little sister and everyone else just to see what will happen at the end (and for the extra achievements), im playing again on hard mode (which medium felt like easy having played BS1 hard several times) and i will kill every thing that crosses my path this time ^_^

[Dr Squishy]

I played the game twice without killing Gil Alex while thinking I did kill him. I did not see the button on the counsle, and thought I killed him just by inserting the genetic key. I just followed the quest arrow, that's why I missed it twice.

[_Pax_]

My first playthrough, I did it all "cold" - no trying to "game the system", no trying to outguess the storyline authors ... I just did as I would have, in that (horrific) situation.

Well, okay, really I'd've curled up in a fetal ball and whimpered myself to death. But, other than that, I just did what I would have.

Thusly and therefor ...

Grace Holloway Every bit as much a victim as Delta and Eleanor. Let down, betrayed, and fed a gigantic dose of misinformation ... I know I'd've been much the same person she is, if I'd lived her life. Killing her would have been murder. I left her alive, contemplating the first dose of Truth she'd been given in over ten years.

Stanley Poole A snivelling, conniving, weasley coward, a rat fink, a thief, a liar, and a mass murderer to boot. There were no redeeming elements of his story, and he flat out deserved to die. I dispensed justice, and left his corpse to molder in the damp and the dark.

Gil Alexander A grotesque monstousity with a demonstrated propensity for psychotic behaviors, whose sane self had been begging me for release. I euthanised a giant, talking tumor.

Sinclair I now all him "the most honest man in Rapture", and his non-survival actually hurts; of all the people in Rapture, aside form the Little Sisters themselves, he most deserved to get free of it, and return to the surface. Was he a good man? No, not hardly; he spent years in Rapture, and succeeded in a city of hedonism and anarhy. But he kept his word, and in Rapture, that's really all you can ever ask for. Obviously, though, I had to free him from Lamb's torment.

[Lady Splicer]

Hi _Pax_

I really like the idea that you just went on how you responded to the situation!

See my above post for why Gil Alexander was not, in fact, sane when he asked you to kill him.

Also not sure why him being a "giant, talking tumor" has anything to do with his right to life? In fact, I would have thought the fact that he talks as being one possible reason you could add to the case to spare him.

Any thoughts? =)

[Sleepy Ben]

Grace Holloway Every bit as much a victim as Delta and Eleanor. Let down, betrayed, and fed a gigantic dose of misinformation ... I know I'd've been much the same person she is, if I'd lived her life. Killing her would have been murder. I left her alive, contemplating the first dose of Truth she'd been given in over ten years.

Stanley Poole A snivelling, conniving, weasley coward, a rat fink, a thief, a liar, and a mass murderer to boot. There were no redeeming elements of his story, and he flat out deserved to die. I dispensed justice, and left his corpse to molder in the damp and the dark.

Gil Alexander A grotesque monstousity with a demonstrated propensity for psychotic behaviors, whose sane self had been begging me for release. I euthanised a giant, talking tumor.

Sinclair I now all him "the most honest man in Rapture", and his non-survival actually hurts; of all the people in Rapture, aside form the Little Sisters themselves, he most deserved to get free of it, and return to the surface. Was he a good man? No, not hardly; he spent years in Rapture, and succeeded in a city of hedonism and anarhy. But he kept his word, and in Rapture, that's really all you can ever ask for. Obviously, though, I had to free him from Lamb's torment.

I did the same and for much the same reasons.

The real disappointment was that I didn't get to kill Sophia Lamb - that cold, arrogant, manipulative woman had so much blood on her hands she thoroughly deserved to die and the way the game suggested she could be redeemed through an act of kindness was stupid nonsense.

[_Pax_]

I did the same and for much the same reasons.

The real disappointment was that I didn't get to kill Sophia Lamb - that cold, arrogant, manipulative woman had so much blood on her hands she thoroughly deserved to die and the way the game suggested she could be redeemed through an act of kindness was stupid nonsense.

Sofia Lamb deserved to die more than once.

And thanks to the miracle of Vita-Chambers, that's actually a possibility!

Good morning, Doctor Lamb. Time for your 6am execution. Today it seems to be ... "death by fire". At noon, we've got you down for "death by being fed feet-first into a rusty chipper/shredder", and at 6pm it looks like "Hot irons and Mustard Gas". Well, come on, on your feet already. Don't want to be late for Execution #3,228 ... do we?

[KurtC]

My first playthrough, I did it all "cold" - no trying to "game the system", no trying to outguess the storyline authors ... I just did as I would have, in that (horrific) situation.

Well, okay, really I'd've curled up in a fetal ball and whimpered myself to death. But, other than that, I just did what I would have.

Thusly and therefor ...

Grace Holloway Every bit as much a victim as Delta and Eleanor. Let down, betrayed, and fed a gigantic dose of misinformation ... I know I'd've been much the same person she is, if I'd lived her life. Killing her would have been murder. I left her alive, contemplating the first dose of Truth she'd been given in over ten years.

Stanley Poole A snivelling, conniving, weasley coward, a rat fink, a thief, a liar, and a mass murderer to boot. There were no redeeming elements of his story, and he flat out deserved to die. I dispensed justice, and left his corpse to molder in the damp and the dark.

Gil Alexander A grotesque monstousity with a demonstrated propensity for psychotic behaviors, whose sane self had been begging me for release. I euthanised a giant, talking tumor.

Sinclair I now all him "the most honest man in Rapture", and his non-survival actually hurts; of all the people in Rapture, aside form the Little Sisters themselves, he most deserved to get free of it, and return to the surface. Was he a good man? No, not hardly; he spent years in Rapture, and succeeded in a city of hedonism and anarhy. But he kept his word, and in Rapture, that's really all you can ever ask for. Obviously, though, I had to free him from Lamb's torment.

did the same... altough the game rewards you with the achievement for sparing the lives of Stanley and Gil , i would only do it to get the achievement but under my judgment i feel they deserve to die... Stanley was all you say... and even if it wouldn't be a threat or no i wouldn't let someone like him to let go just like that... and Gil well was more a help to his request

[WillXav]

I liked the game a lot and I liked the fact that we could choose who to kill or save. The morality aspect that was in Bioshock 1 with the Little Sisters was a good aspect and in this game, you've built upon it.

I saved Grace because she is a woman and I don't believe in killing women who are defenceless and have done nothing wrong in video games. She is old, she is alone and she isn't splicer-ish.

Stanely Poole I killed because he was a dumb-ass and he was a sniveling little pig who got greedy and became blinded by his own selfishness that caused many people to become hurt.

Gilbert Alexander, I killed because it was euthanasia and he wanted me to kill him because he was in pain, he was suffering and he deserved to be relieved out of his misery.

I wish we could have decided Sofia Lamb's life

[RaiNoTsuba]

Sofia Lamb deserved to die more than once.

And thanks to the miracle of Vita-Chambers, that's actually a possibility!

Good morning, Doctor Lamb. Time for your 6am execution. Today it seems to be ... "death by fire". At noon, we've got you down for "death by being fed feet-first into a rusty chipper/shredder", and at 6pm it looks like "Hot irons and Mustard Gas". Well, come on, on your feet already. Don't want to be late for Execution #3,228 ... do we?

Well I do love the torture methods you have listed and believe me I could have fun with that too, I find that maybe testing new plasmids and weapons may be a better use for her. An unlimited amount of trial runs on a subject who would remember every detail of the previous attempts might be a quick way to improve the quality of certain attacks.

[Madman6884]

Grace was really a no-brainer for me. After seeing and hearing what she had experienced, losing the man she loved, living in fear of being 'silenced', losing the child she was trusted to care for, and that her hatred of me was a misunderstanding, of course I didn't hurt her.

Stanley I spared as well. From what I hear he's scum, but was also stuck in a situation that was over his head and scared him like no other. But that's not why I saved him. When Lamb came on the intercom and told me that "I could have my revenge", my first thought was that I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of being right about me. It wasn't a careful considering of his actions, it was just that I was not about to let her be right.

Gil, like many other people, I considered it a mercy kill. Seeing what he had become and that in his last sane thoughts he begged me to end his life made me certain that it was the right thing to do.

[Sledgehammer]

Gil Alexander did much worse things than Stanley. Why you should let him have his last will and not let Stanley is beyond me.

[Zvriel Chkies]

From my first playthrough.
I did not kill Grace because she was VERY nasty but she was misinformed.
I killed Poole because he was in a liar, a thief.
I mainly killed him because I hate slimy journalists. And he was a nasty piece of work.
The turning Delta and Eleanor in was fate.
Gil Alexander. I killed him because I thought it was the plot.



I can not bear to harvest the LS.
I tried to do a bad playthrough but I havested 1 LS and I was beset by guilt. I could not bear the next one being afraid of me.
I could take no more waking up in vita chambers with the LS saying I'll be quiet, don't be angry Daddy.
The game is so much more graphic than BS1. The LS drinks the blood in full view and nothing is fudged.
The harvesting video is so wrong. Watching a BD harvest a LS is not right.
The look of happy, then betrayel and fear, the breaking her neck with one hand and then crushing the sea slug is horrifying.
I even felt sorry for the sea slug

I want to see the bad endings but I do not know if I can bear to Harvest LS'.

I am being nice to everyone on this playthrough.

[coffee009]

Is it evil to kill gil? He askes for it. I thin kthe hardest moral choice is Grace and Stanly, the game makes you hate them.

[Virtues]

Is it evil to kill gil? He askes for it. I thin kthe hardest moral choice is Grace and Stanly, the game makes you hate them.

It's all relative(As you can see by the explosion of discussion) but officially the game treats killing Gil as a bad thing.